The murder trial of a Martinez woman accused of killing her roommate is expected to begin today in Columbia County.

Prosecutors are expected to begin choosing a jury Wednesday to try Yvette Taylor, 47, who is charged with murder.

She was arrested Feb. 11 in connection with the death of Theodore Crew, 63.

Taylor initially told authorities that she left the apartment she shared with Crew at about 1 a.m. and returned seven hours later to find Crew unresponsive on the bathroom floor. Taylor was Crew’s friend and caregiver.

Taylor’s mother and aunt, who live in an apartment across the Applecross Apartments complex, initially said Taylor spent the night but later recanted and told investigators that she arrived that morning with a box cutter and a bag of bloody clothes.

Deputies found the items behind a fence in a wooded area behind the complex.

An investigator said at a February 2012 preliminary hearing that deputies found an overturned plastic lawn chair with blood on and around it and a trail of blood leading to the bathroom inside the apartment Taylor and Crew shared.

Crew was found lying nude on the bathroom floor, which also was covered in blood, and his clothes were in the bathtub. Deputies also smelled bleach.

Crew had a large gash to his face and another on his arm. He died from a combination of sharp and blunt force trauma, Columbia County Coroner Vernon Collins said after an autopsy.

Some of Taylor’s neighbors told deputies they heard noises coming from the apartment early that morning including grumbling and what sounded like someone moving something heavy across the floor.

After her arrest, Taylor told jailers, “I cut him,” and that she was in an abusive relationship. She’d told neighbors that she was tired of cleaning up after Crew.

Taylor has been held in the Columbia County Detention Center without bond since her arrest.